Free Comic Book Day

Free Comic Book Day arrives Saturday, with more than 2,000 participating comic book shops readying their annual blowout of gratis titles and in-store appearances across the country. Marvel’s planning to release a complimentary issue of “Guardians of the Galaxy” that will tease to a game-changing event for Spider-Man, while DC is launching a new series with “The New 52: Futures End” No. 0, which marks Batman Beyond’s debut in the New 52 universe. (The series will continue its weekly run with issue No. 1 set to hit stands Wednesday.) In all, more than 60 titles will be made available at no cost: among them, Dark Horse will release a complimentary issue of “Avatar: The Last Airbender”; Archie Comics will offer “Archie Digest” No. 1, which features a new introduction to the Riverdale gang; and IDW will offer a free issue […]

Marvel is giving away free digital downloads for more than 700 comic book issues — for real this time. The comics publisher attempted the promotion a month ago, offering more than 700 No. 1 issues of its series via the Marvel Comics app and the Marvel Digital Comics Shop, powered by the digital platform ComiXology. But fans logged on in force, causing ComiXology’s servers to crash. “We expected a high degree of excitement for the Marvel initiative – and had believed ourselves prepared – but unfortunately we became overwhelmed by the immense response,” ComiXology CEO David Steinberger wrote on the site’s blog at the time. If the server overload left you comic-less, have no fear; Marvel and ComiXology are doing it differently this time around. Readers can sign up at promo.marvel.com by 8:59 p.m. Pacific (that’s 11:59 Eastern) Tuesday to […]

It worked with ice cream, so why wouldn’t it work with comics? A decade after Joe Field saw people standing in line for free scoops of ice cream, the effort to lure new and lapsed readers by offering up free comic books has become an annual event embraced by publishers and comic book retailers eager for new customers. Field, who owns Flying Colors Comics in Concord, Calif., said that the idea for the event, now in its 10th year, was inspired by an ice cream shop. “I noticed a long line of people outside my store. The line was for Baskin Robbins’ ‘Free Scoop Night’ — and I thought to myself, ‘Comics are way cooler than ice cream! We should be able to do something bigger and better than Free Scoop Night.'” He wrote about the idea for an industry […]